


Blue Eyed Man

by Marie_Phantom



Series: Tumbleweed (Blowing In The Wind) [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, Canon Disabled Character, F/M, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:06:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2062221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_Phantom/pseuds/Marie_Phantom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's hearing aids are on the fritz, Boss is twitching in the corner, and in a dim part of his mind, he misses his wife.</p><p>It is not a good day to be a bad guy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Eyed Man

Clint couldn't hear out of his left ear. 

He knocked a thumb gently against his hearing aid, but all he got was static. He removed it and studied it, giving it a good blow and putting it back in. 

Nothing. 

Clint sighed and rubbed his head. He glanced around at the hoard of stolen soldiers, assembling their weapons and making plans like the best evil army out there. Of course, no one thought of himself as evil. They nearly were. Neither good nor bad, just being.

Behind him, he could hear Selvig talking animatedly as he worked alongside the Tesseract. But Clint ignored him, more focused on his current hearing problem. He was 80% deaf in his ears, and if one was going wrong, that left him with about 40% hearing. That was about useless when you were meant to be guarding someone. 

Rolling his shoulders, he turned around and looked at Loki, who was sitting on some steps, holding the staff tightly in his hand. His head was tilted to the side, and his mouth was pinching in the corners. Clint narrowed his eyes. Boss did not look very well. Indeed, he had not looked well every since Clint first saw him. There was a fine sheen of sweat in his hair line, and his cheeks were hollowed, his sharp cheekbones casting shadows on his face. His hair was greasy and slicked back, and Clint tried to remember when he had last seen Boss have a shower, or anything even resembling a wash.

He moved closer to Boss, keeping his feet light and his voice soft. That staff looked damn sharp, he didn't want to see if it could actually pierce him.

"Boss?" he murmured. Loki didn't even move. Clint moved closer.

"Boss, we kind of need you know."

There wasn't even a twitch. Clint didn't like how the Boss looked when he was in these moments. He looked sick, and he was sweating even harder. Slowly, his mouth opened and he started to pant softly, like a dog.

Clint frowned. He glanced at the hand holding the staff and saw it was shaking slightly. He didn't like how this looked, but he knew that he needed to snap Boss out of it as soon as possible. He glanced at the staff again and screwed up his courage. Reaching out a hand, he touched Boss's shoulder and shook his gently.

"Boss, you gotta wake up now."

Loki twitched sharply, but didn't wake up. Clint shook harder.

"Boss, we need you."

Loki started whining under his breath, a high pitched out sound that tugged at Clint's heart. Clint licked his lips and put both hands on Loki's shoulders, shaking harder.

"Boss, you need to wake up. You're dreaming." 

Loki suddenly gritted his teeth and tilted his head back, gasping towards the ceiling. Clint didn't let go, but grasped the shoulders tightly and shook harder.

"Boss, wake up now!" he hissed, and shook harder enough to knock Loki's head back against the wall. Loki jolted forward and opened his eyes, gasping sharply. Clint let go of his shoulders and stepped back. 

Loki hung his head between his knees, drawing in deep breaths. The hand grasping the staff spasmed and the staff fell to the floor. Clint looked over his shoulder, but no one was paying any attention to them. He looked back at Loki, who had stopped gasping and was now looking at Clint through the hair in his face. Clint frowned, uncomfortable with the look Loki was giving him.

"Blond." murmured Loki. Clint bit back a sigh of frustration and leaned forward, focusing all his attention on Loki's lips. 

"What was that?" he asked. Loki didn't answer. Instead, he reached out a long hand and gently took Clint's hair in his hand, rubbing the strands between fingers. Clint stayed still, bemused by this behaviour.

"Blond hair." Loki said, still softly. He released Clint's hair, but instead placed his fingers belong Clint's eyes. "Blue eyes."

Clint frowned. He took his eyes away from Loki's lips and picked up the staff, offering it to Loki. Loki ignored him, instead focusing all his attention on Clint's face.

"Boss, you need to take the staff." He said, offering it to Loki. Loki took his hands away from Clint's face but still focused on his eyes.

"Thor?" he asked softly.

"No Boss, Clint."

"Thor, they've been hurting me."

Clint chewed his lips and ignored the tugging in his chest. His hand shook on the staff. He tried to force it into Loki's hand, but Loki would not take it.

"Thor, they've taken my babies. They took them from me when they weren't ready. I wanted my babies to live, Thor. My babies are dead Thor." 

Clint took a shuddering breath (" _You wont't ever have children, you know. I can't have them"_ ) and grasped Loki's hand, forcing his fingers open and placing the staff in them. He them closed the fingers and felt Loki shudder violently. Clint had kept his eyes firmly on Loki's lips, the better to read what he said. If his hearing aids had been working, then he would have seen Loki's eyes turn from a sad forest green to bright blue.

Loki stood up suddenly, so suddenly that Clint stumbled back and fell. 

"So clumsy, how do you stay balanced on rooftops?" Loki smirked at him.

"Practice, Boss." Clint picked himself up and dusted off his seat, turning back to where Selvig was and moving off. He ignored the tugging in his chest, as he thought about what Loki had said. His thought dimly of a red haired woman with a wicked smile, and he couldn't for the life of him figure out why he gave a small smile when he thought about her. He heard a murmur behind him, but he couldn't pick out the words, so he turned and asked "What did you say?". 

Loki didn't say anything. He moved to where Clint was and reached out, plucking the defunct hearing aid from his left ear. He was so quick about it that Clint didn't have time except to slap his hand against his ear, looking faintly offended. Loki studied the item resting in his palm.

"I didn't know you were deaf." Loki said. Clint shrugged.

"An accident, a while ago. Nothing much I can do about it." Loki continued to study the hearing aid.

"It's broken."

Loki looked up. "I can see that." He shifted his staff so it rested under his arm, and brought his other hand up to the hearing aid. Loki frowned, and the fingers of his right hand, the ones that didn't have the hearing aid, started to gently weave patterns in the air. Clint could see green mist start to come out.

"What are you doing Boss?"

Loki didn't look up, but continued to weave his magic. "I do not have time to properly heal your ears. But I do have time to fix this for you."

Clint raised his eyebrows. "Thanks."

"It is no problem." Loki stopped weaving and turned the device over in his hand. He gave it a light dusting of green mist and then handed it back to Clint, who eyed it briefly and then popped it back into his ear. To his surprise, he could hear perfectly.

"Cheers."

Loki gave a brief smile. "When this is finished, and I rule, come to me, and I will fix your hearing for good."

Clint grinned. "Sounds like a deal."

 

 

 

_Present Day_

 

 

"I think I remember something."

Natasha rolled over in bed and sleepily nuzzled Clint's shoulder. Clint reached out an arm and tugged it across her shoulders, drawing her closer so her head rested on his shoulder.

"What was that?" she asked dimly.

"I remember something, from when I was with Loki."

Natasha was suddenly much more alert. She sat up and looked hard at him.

"Is it something bad?" she asked cautiously. Clint shook his head and continued to stare at the ceiling.

"There was an...incident. I think he was communicating with the Chitauri, something to do with the staff. We needed to speak to him, but he wouldn't wake up. So I shook him, and when he did, he called me Thor."

Natasha didn't say anything, but rested a hand on his chest. Clint swallowed.

"He told me, about his dead kids."

Natasha gave a soft gasp. "Only Bucky and Thor really knows about them." She said softly. Clint gave her a sad smile in the darkness.

"I couldn't hear, so I was reading his lips. But, I swear for a second, his eyes were green."

There was a beat of silence. 

"He had said that he did have moments when he was able to break through. Maybe this was one of those moments." Natasha said, rubbing a hand gently up and down Clint's chest, soothing his fast beating heart.

Clint wet his lips. "You know, even when his eyes were blue, he still wasn't entirely awful. He fixed my hearing aid, the one that was broken."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. I think he wanted me to be in top condition, but he still fixed it."

Natasha laid her head down again and tugged Clint close. He was starting to drift off again when he heard Natasha say "He's not awful. I think he's just a bit lost." Clint fell asleep, pondering those words.

The next day, at the breakfast bar, Clint turned to Loki and said, for the first time in 11 months, "You owe me a new pair of ears."

And Loki smiled, and said "Yes I do."


End file.
